Feel it Turn
by Peripheral Vision
Summary: A continuation. Tidus comes back, but doesn't. Yuna is fine, but isn't. And around them Spira might just be falling apart.
1. The Earth Below Me

There was water here: the cool sweet kind that bubbled out from the rocks, which was  
good to drink, and the rippled surface surrounding the land, which parched his throat but  
felt nice to lie in.  
  
He sat on the shore or under the trees when the sun stung his skin. When his stomach was  
empty, he ate the berries that grew on the bushes. When his eyelids were heavy, he would  
close them.  
  
He did not like those times. They brought the fire and the knives and the screaming, and  
the eyes that cried. He preferred the waking times, with a sky that was blue and a sea that  
was bluer, both rolling with white gentle motion. The dark times were comforting and silky  
against his skin, and that was good too.  
  
During both times he would sit and watch the waves until his body felt dull and sluggish  
and his mind would go to the place where everything hurt and bled. When it came back,  
he would be curled up in the sand, his throat sore and aching with old screams.  
  
*****  
  
Rikku was at heart a good, old-fashioned Al Bhed girl, which meant she spent a lot of her  
time buried in the guts of a machina and covered with motor oil. Today was no exception -  
the schooner kept puttering to a halt and would only start again after several minutes of  
alternately pleading and kicking the control panel. So here Rikku was, balanced  
precariously on a propellor, up to her knees in cold sea water, prying open the engine  
hatchet with a screwdriver.  
  
"Piece of junk," she muttered reproachfully, wedging the tool into the crack of the hood,  
which was practically fused closed from rust, and yanking up. "Don't know why we're  
using you on a salvaging mission. Last week you probably /were/ salvage."  
  
The schooner didn't answer, but the momentum from the final tug that pried the hood open  
threw her backwards into the water. Rikku came up coughing. "That wasn't very funny!"  
  
The machina just rocked back and forth, rather smugly, Rikku thought. It probably knew it  
was the only way she had to get back to the main vessel, and she had no choice but to be  
nice to it. She hoisted herself back up on the propellor and examined the engine.  
  
The schooner was one of ancient Zanarkand's older models, which meant less streamlined,  
more odd parts, more things that could break. Rikku found herself wondering what it had  
been used for back then. She had a rough sketch of the layout of the city in her head;  
maybe it had taken the blitzball players from the main city to the stadium. No, probably not.  
It could only carry one or two people including the captain at a time. That would have  
meant a lot of trips back and forth unless there was a whole fleet of them. It would have  
been more practical to use something bigger with more passenger room. The schooner had  
probably been a private yacht or something like that.  
  
She wondered if she was spending too much time around the Psyches lately, if the first  
thing she thought of was its usefulness in relation to blitzball.   
  
The engine was in pretty sorry shape, missing a few screws and the fanbelt was nearly  
worn through. Rikku was going to have a talk with whoever decided not to replace it  
before deeming the schooner seaworthy. She wouldn't have thought the thing could have  
lasted this long, but machina could surprise you like that. Vehicles and weapons and tools  
sometimes ran on little more than expectations, working long after they should have fallen  
apart, as if they themselves were determined to beat the odds and do you proud. These  
days most people were putting their faith in machina and, despite the glitches that were  
bound to happen when people tinkered with things not knowing exactly how they worked,  
machina hadn't disappointed them yet.   
  
In the time of the Eternal Calm, machina had become just another part of life on Spira.  
Slowly and timidly at first, but then new instruments had fallen more and more seamlessly  
into use as Spirans realized they were not sinning by simplifying their lives.  
  
That had made Cid laugh, albeit ruefully, that once people found out machina gave them an  
excuse to be lazy using it was just peachy. Rikku's brother had said that being a pilot  
certainly didn't make /his/ life easier, and Cid had told him to shut up, he knew what he  
meant. Rikku had alternately giggled and rolled her eyes at the ensuing argument.  
  
The memory of it made her smile as she tightened a few screws. She wasn't exactly the  
voice of reason in her family, but she had a measure of composure, an ability to see a  
situation with unclouded eyes, that her headstrong brother and father did not. Rikku  
didn't think of herself as anything special, but she had lived more than a lifetime's worth of  
experience in a few months and she understood now, sometimes almost resentfully, how  
that changed a person.  
  
Not that she wanted special treatment or to be anything other than an Al Bhed; and the Al  
Bhed, true to their nature, cherished her as they did all their children but didn't bow down  
or give her a title the way the Spirans had. The Lady Rikku divided her time between  
helping build the new Home and teaching the Spirans about machina. And, when her idiot  
brother and his friends pleaded and begged her to take over for them, her old job of   
salvage.  
  
"I'm gonna kill him," she said, slamming the hood shut like she was decapitating someone.  
"And I'm gonna kill /me/ for being so stupid." There was no way she could make it all the  
way back to the ship with the schooner in this shape, and she hadn't thought to bring any  
long-range communicators with her. This was a simple scouting mission, but she still was  
cocky and sloppy, going off alone. The best she could do now was hope there was land  
somewhere nearby, ground the thing and work on it properly.   
  
She dove back into the water, used to the cold of it now, and swam around the side to the  
cockpit. The engine started up after only three tries, which was at least something, Rikku  
reflected as she punched in her coordinates.  
  
The schooner's scanner made up for its engine. Rikku was limp with relief when it picked up  
a small landmass. She set her course, and the schooner sputtered into motion, leaving behind  
a wake of smoke and sea-crests.  
  
The island, when it came within sight after a few more hours and many starts and stops,  
was too tiny to settle on, too tiny to name. It was more a big rock than an island, shaped  
like a cone or a dome, but it had a little stretch of sand that was almost a beach and a few  
wispy but determined trees, their roots buried deep into crevices in the rock. According to  
the scanner there was also moving fresh water here - probably a spring or something.   
  
And a blip on the screen that indicated something alive but barely moving. Rikku frowned  
at it. It could possibly be a fiend that found refuge from the slaughter a few years ago. If it  
was, she could handle it and if it wasn't, she didn't necessarily have to care. Besides, the  
scanner could still prove to be as buggy as the rest of the ship.  
  
Salt was still clinging to her teeth when she finished dragging the schooner on shore, and  
her feet and arms were gritty with sand. "Might as well go sightseeing," she said with a  
cheerfulness she might have felt if her body didn't feel like it had just been pounded flat,  
fishing her canteen out of the hull and starting the hike up the gentle crest of the island.  
  
Spirans didn't quite understand the nature of machina just yet. They were always asking if  
there were machines that could make you stronger or smarter, that could produce water or  
food out of thin air, as if it were a magic more wonderful than wonder itself. Rikku was  
always shaking her head and telling them no, no, machina can help you live your life but it  
couldn't live it /for/ you.  
  
She heard something that was either the gurgle of a stream or the rustling of leaves and  
headed towards it. She found instead an echo of the dead, a song she had thought was  
forever lost to the wind.   
  
He was just a shape at first, colorful and squat. But the colors were familiar and the shape  
became that of a man sitting down with his knees pulled to his chest and his head bowed.  
Rikku waited for the figure to become clearer, more focused, but it didn't. She realized  
that her legs had stopped moving.  
  
"No way," she breathed. "No /way/." This was too perfect to be true, too much like what  
would happen if the world were a fairer place than it was. But it /could/ be him. He was  
thinner sure, dirtier, but so would anyone be if they were abandoned here. The hair was  
the same blond symphony of fly-aways, the clothes were the same strange collection,  
almost Al Bhed but not. And the face, while more sharply defined from hunger, was  
exactly the same as she remembered.  
  
Rikku ran, her legs and arms pinwheeling like she was fifteen again, with a cry in her throat  
that was six years in the making. "Tidus!"  
  
****  
  
"Tidus!"  
  
He looked up because he had never heard that sort of noise before. It had the same sharp  
strength of the sounds the sea birds made, but it tried to convey things the sea birds never  
even thought. It was running up to him, and he knew it was a she, although he wasn't  
certain what a she was.  
  
She stopped right in front of him and bent over, making little stuttering noises. "Tidus," she  
said again between them. "Tidus! What are you doing here? How did you get here? I  
can't believe it! This is incredible! The others are going to go /nuts/! Yuna...Yuna  
will...I'm so glad you're all right!" She put her arms around him and tightened them until his  
own breath hitched.  
  
After a while, she withdrew and looked at him for a long time again, biting her lip. "Tidus?"  
The sound was less like the sea birds now, or maybe like them during the dark when their  
noises were softer, more peaceful. But her voice was not peaceful; it was as if the sea  
birds' calls had been blended with the uncertainty of the dark itself. "Are you okay?"  
  
He realized he was expected to respond and nodded jerkily.   
  
Her eyes flicked back and forth but still on him. "Tidus...it's /Rikku/." A heavy drop on the  
last part, and he thought maybe it was important.   
  
So he said it himself, tasted it. "Rikku."  
  
She nodded up and down vigorously, but her face was still drawn together when she  
stopped. "Tidus." She touched his knee softly, the way he had said her name. "Do  
you...know who I am?"  
  
"Rikku."  
  
She made a high little sound. "Yeah, but...do I seem familiar at all? You... know me,   
right, Tidus?"  
  
And because he didn't even know what that meant, he said, "no."  
  
*****  
  
Disappointment and confusion coated her mouth, thick and bitter. Rikku could see no  
obvious signs of concussion or sunstroke, just Tidus staring at her with blank eyes and a  
bland mouth. In lieu of anything better to do, she put a hand on his forehead. He blinked  
reflexively but otherwise didn't move, and the skin under her hand felt cool and dry.  
  
It wasn't a sudden burst of insight that made her ask whether he recognized her. Rikku  
wasn't that intuitive. It was his eyes. It took a little while for an Al Bhed to get used to  
Spiran eyes, let alone understand their silent communication, but the lack of /anything/ in  
Tidus's, as obvious and guileless and uninterested as his expression itself, chilled her and  
twisted her stomach.  
  
Rikku sat back on her heels, looking out at the ocean, and wondered what to do next.  
  
"Not at all?" she asked in a pathetic little voice.  
  
"No," Tidus said simply, as if he didn't even know he should sound apologetic about it.  
  
She swallowed hard a few times, and stood up, holding out her hand. "Well...show me  
where the spring is, okay?"  
  
****  
  
The pen was an extension of her hand and moved in long smooth strokes tuned to her  
heartbeat, ink flowing as smoothly and evenly as one breathed during sleep. She had  
always enjoyed calligraphy, even in her writing lessons as a child, but she was still more  
startled than dismayed when a redheaded missile crashed into her leg and shook the table  
so hard ink sloshed over the side of the pot.  
  
"Aunt Yuna!" the projectile said, clinging to her knee. "Whatcha doing?"  
  
"Good morning, Setta," Yuna said mildly, picking the girl up and settling her in her lap.  
"I'm writing a letter to Bevelle's Minister of Defense. Where are your brothers?"  
  
Setta scowled, her jaw jutting out and looking nothing so much as like her father. "Ghadi's  
with Mom. Chapri said I couldn't play blitzball 'cos I was just a stupid girl. He said that I  
couldn't kick far enough and I would cry. But I'm gonna tell Mom and he'll be sorry!"  
  
Yuna, mopping up the spilled ink with a handkerchief, privately agreed he probably would  
be.  
  
Setta poked the letter to see if it would do anything interesting, but it just skittered a little  
to the side. "What're you writing to the min'ster about?"  
  
Years ago Yuna would have glossed over her answer and made it pleasant, been so vague  
as to almost be lying, but she knew from experience that Setta was too stubborn to accept  
an explanations without facts. Besides, Yuna doubted the value of keeping anything from  
anyone for their own good. "Bevelle still hasn't recovered from the riots. They need a lot of  
help, and I'm writing the minister to tell him that I've talked to the Crusaders and they'll  
send some of the recruits to help rebuild the houses."  
  
Setta nodded thoughtfully, swinging her legs. She watched the movement of Yuna's hand  
as it wrote, her eyes darting back and forth like a feral thing.  
  
One thing Yuna had always disliked about the headquarters in Luca was the great marble  
emptiness of it, how every sound was magnified. Now the shuffling of running footsteps  
grew louder and louder until they turned into Shelinda in the doorway, her hands on her  
hips and huffing indignantly.  
  
"There you are!" she said, glaring at Setta, who didn't even bother to try and look  
innocent. "I told you that Lady Yuna is not to be disturbed!"  
  
Setta sniffed.  
  
"It's all right, Shelinda." Yuna smiled, brushing hair out of her eyes with her free hand. "I  
don't mind."   
  
Shelinda got that pinched look on her face, like she thought she /should/ agree with what  
was just said but couldn't quite bring herself to. "Surely you have more important things to  
do with your time than look after children, Lady Yuna."  
  
"Aunt Yuna isn't looking after me, stupid," Setta said, deliberately malicious the way  
children can be with adults they know don't have power over them. "I'm keeping her  
company."  
  
"Setta, don't be rude," Yuna told her. "Apologize to Shelinda."  
  
Setta crossed her arms and looked at the floor to hide her pout. "...'m sorry."  
  
"Very well," Shelinda said with grudging, harried grace. "But Lady Yuna, the envoy from  
Killika is arriving within the hour and I don't think /he/ will appreciate her there during the  
negotiations."  
  
Yuna blinked. "He is, isn't he? I almost forgot." She ruffled Setta's wiry hair. "I'm going to  
busy for a little while. Would you mind finding something else to do? You could always  
ask your mother if you could play out by the docks."  
  
"She won't let me since the last time."  
  
"Then maybe you shouldn't try to stowaway on a trading barge this time!" Shelinda said.  
"Poor Lady Lulu, Lady Yuna and Sir Wakka were worried sick! Lady Yuna, would  
you like me to get the papers?"  
  
Yuna nodded. "That would be wonderful. Thank you, Shelinda."  
  
Shelinda smiled and ducked her head, a gesture more childish than anything Setta had ever  
done. The scrape of her slippers echoed off the walls again as she went into the file  
chamber. Yuna set Setta down on the floor with another pat, picking up her pen again.  
  
"Miss Shelinda is weird," Setta remarked, scrubbing at her freckles.  
  
"She's just very different from you, Setta," Yuna said, not looking up. "And...the change  
was very hard for her."  
  
Setta, realizing that there was no longer any entertainment to be found here shook her  
head like she was drying herself off and ran out of the room with a backwards wave.  
"Bye, Aunt Yunie!"  
  
Yuna smiled to herself. Each of the twins was a handful in their own right, but Setta was  
pure, unbridled energy, whirling from one point to another and not minding as long as the  
trip was colorful and interesting. She was almost practical about the havoc she wreaked,  
considering it a natural and barely upsetting consequence. Chapri was the one who would  
watch carefully, gather information and evidence, and /then/ cause more trouble than a four  
year old had the right to get into. They were such a perfect blend of their parents, though,  
each shining with different intermingled facets of Wakka and Lulu, that it was almost  
impossible for Yuna to ever stay mad at them.  
  
She was aware, however, that this was not the general opinion of half of Luca.  
  
She turned back to her letters. If she could finish the next four before Deneti came it would  
clear up her afternoon to speak to Lyuik. The Crusader was always more malleable to her  
suggestions if she made them in person.  
  
Yuna re-inked her pen, and the world slipped out of her grasp.  
  
She could hear herself gasp but couldn't feel herself make the sound. She could see, but it  
wasn't her seeing, it was images coming from a thousand years away that might once  
have been her desk, the floor, the chair. She groped for something and her hand found the  
drawer, the brass handle, which should have been cool and smooth, separated from her  
palm by something intangible but still stiff and stern no matter how tightly she tried to  
clutch it. Her chest was tight and her cheeks were hot, but she was too far away from her  
skin for it to hurt. Her body was remote and foreign, and she had no idea where the rest of  
her could possibly be.  
  
"Shelinda," she whispered, and her voice came from the ocean floor. "Shelinda! Please!  
Help..."  
  
Shelinda came running, her slippers skidding on the marble floor and a train of papers  
trailing behind her from the folder she held in her hand. "My Lady! What..."  
  
And Yuna was sitting at her desk, cradling her forehead in her hand next to the inkpot,  
which had spilled for the second time that morning. "I..." She blinked, shaking her head  
slowly, as redistributing the weight in her skull. "I...felt dizzy for a moment, I think. Maybe  
I should have eaten this morning."  
  
"Can I get you something to eat now, Lady Yuna?"  
  
Yuna looked around her, at the room that was really there and had always been, and  
turned a smile towards her assistant. "I'm sorry to have worried you. I'm fine. You can go  
back to what you were doing."  
  
Shelinda squinted and cocked her head, as if a new angle would give her fresh inspiration,  
but nodded and turned to go.  
  
Shelinda?" Yuna called after her with a self-deprecating little laugh. "Could you get me  
another piece of paper, please? I seemed to have ruined this one."  
  
****  
  
"There's nothing physically wrong with him." Trella was the closest thing the ship had to a  
medic, all seriousness now as she read the printout from the tests Rikku had asked her to  
take on the stranger she had brought back. "At least that I can see. No brain damage, no  
internal bleeding. He's a little malnourished and dehydrated, but nothing unexpected. All in  
all he's lucky to be as healthy as he is. How long do you think he was on that rock,  
anyway?"  
  
"Beats me." Rikku chewed her lip. She had gently sent Tidus out of the room to discuss  
his condition with Trella, and she could see him in the corridor, sitting on the corrugated  
metal floor and staring - as much as he was staring /at/ anything - at the wall. "I asked him,  
but I don't think /he/ knows."  
  
It hadn't taken a lot of coaxing to get Tidus to come back with her once she had fixed the  
schooner. She had simply asked, and Tidus had climbed into the passenger's seat like it  
hadn't or couldn't occur to him to refuse. The past two days on the ship he hadn't said a  
word unless asked a direct question, hadn't gone anywhere unless specifically instructed.  
He just followed Rikku around with eyes that barely even blinked, like the world's most  
trusting and docile three year old.  
  
But that wasn't right. Toddlers at least showed some sign of emerging individuality, of the  
person they would grow to become. Tidus (and she had to think of him as Tidus because  
who else could he be, even though now it sometimes took effort on her part) didn't seem  
to want anything enough to be childish. If anything, he was like a machina, stopping and  
starting when he was told, eating the meal Rikku had put in front of him after they had  
boarded the ship and she had shimmyed out of her wetsuit, and calmly extending his arm  
for the shots Trella administered, without complaint or question. He was like an  
automation made flesh; there was none of the restless, good-willed enthusiasm Rikku  
associated with her friend.   
  
The Tidus she had known was as volatile as the sea he had come from. The longer she  
was with this incarnation, the more he seemed like a doll stitched out of someone else's  
skin. No wonder he couldn't remember her, Tidus couldn't even remember /himself/.  
  
"Sure is a weird kid," Trella said, following Rikku's gaze. In Al Bhed her words sounded  
harsher than they might have otherwise. "I can see why you wanted me to do more  
extensive testing on him. /Something/ happened to him on that island, that's for sure."  
  
"Yeah," Rikku mumbled. "Yeah maybe." She turned to squint at Trella. "What do you  
mean calling him a kid, anyway?"  
  
Trella looked up from gathering her instruments. "What do /you/ mean? He's a kid. Can't  
be more than what, sixteen, seventeen?"  
  
Rikku looked back out at the corridor and tried to see him without the imprint of memory  
seared in her mind. At twenty-one she wasn't exactly the mature and collected figure that  
as a teenager she had hoped she would transform into, but at least she was noticeably  
older, no longer as gangly and eager as she used to be.  
  
If Tidus had been on that island for the past six years, he hadn't aged a /day/.  
  
"Yeah," Rikku said again, trying to collect her thoughts. She walked out of the room with a  
backwards wave. "Thanks, Trella. Hope the salvage this afternoon goes well."  
  
"As luck and wit command it," Trella called after her.  
  
Rikku was glad she didn't know the crew here well enough for them to consider her  
surrogate family above and beyond the general assumption that all Al Bhed were related.  
They had greeted her back in vague terms of 'glad you're not dead brought back anything  
good?' and accepted her explanation of her companion (she found him on an island and  
didn't know how he got there, which was more or less the truth) with mild interest and no  
questions. If they noticed that she seemed agitated, they kept it to themselves.  
  
Rikku stopped in front of Tidus. She saw him register her knees in his line of sight and how  
it took him a moment to look up to her face.  
  
"Come on," she said, offering him a hand. "Let's go back to your room." He didn't take it  
immediately, and Rikku put his hand in hers and pulled, to show him what she meant. She  
heard the clank of his feet following hers through the passageways leading to the section of  
the cargo hold they had set up for him.  
  
Tidus stood in the middle of the room until Rikku sat on the bed, when he followed her  
example by sitting next to her. Rikku cupped her head in one hand, absently chewing on  
the nail of her pinky. If only he'd swing his legs or look around him or just act like he was  
really /there/ and not like some wispy phantom copy of himself superimposed onto her life.  
  
"What am I going to do with you?" Rikku sighed. Tidus turned to look at her or perhaps  
just at the sound.  
  
But Rikku already knew what she had to do, could see what was coming with the certainty  
of rereading an old book. She had to take Tidus to Luca. Machina so far hadn't been able  
to find out what was wrong with him; perhaps magic would. Lulu and Yuna had to be two  
of the most powerful mages on Spira. Maybe they could divine something she couldn't.  
Besides, and this was the part that echoed through her conscience, what right did she have  
to keep this from them?  
  
That sort of concerned self-righteousness could carry her far, but not passed all of her  
worry. Rikku's memories of that final night were etched in lightning: Yuna lying crumpled  
and broken on the bow of the airship, Tidus still standing, facing the rest of them, staring at  
hands that were as translucent and wavering as the surrounding pyreflies. His attempts at  
brusque resolve had been dissolving too, into the misery clearly lining his face. Rikku  
remembered how she had waved and waved, jumping up and down, to keep herself from  
screaming No! Come back! Aren't we enough to make you stay? Isn't Yunie...  
  
But they hadn't been, and Yuna hadn't been, and enough time had passed for Rikku to  
almost forget how much that hurt.  
  
After so many years, how could she bring this thing that should be Tidus but wasn't back  
to her cousin? Those first few days after the battle had been won Yuna had been nearly as  
limp and vacant as Tidus was now, no matter how well she had hidden it. But that had been   
literally an era ago, and Yuna was always busy now and smiling smiles that were real as far  
as Rikku could tell. And really, if Rikku couldn't show Yuna Tidus as he was now, she also  
knew she couldn't hide him from Yuna either.  
  
"I'm going to take care of some things in the cockpit, Tidus." He seemed to be responding  
to his name, or at least he had learned that was what she called him."Why don't you take a  
nap while I'm gone?" She mimed resting her head on top of her hands and closing her  
eyes. He didn't seem tired; it would just creep Rikku out to know that he would sit as  
silent and unmoving as if he were uncharged until she came back, unless she told him to do  
otherwise.  
  
Tidus nodded but the corner of his mouth tightened, as if he didn't like the suggestion.  
Rikku remembered then, and felt like an idiot. He had woken up the whole ship the first  
night with his screaming. The second night he had only woken Rikku up because she had  
slept in a cot next to his and soothed him until he could fall back to sleep. Neither time had  
he been able to tell her what he had been dreaming about. "Why don't you just lie down  
and rest, then? This might take me a little while, but I'll be back."  
  
"Okay," Tidus said, and curled up on his side in a curve, propping his head on his hands  
like Rikku had just showed him. The Tidus she had known has sprawled indulgently on  
any available surface, arms and legs flung out from his body like a starfish.  
  
Rikku covered him with a spare blanket and dialed the combination code to close the door  
behind her. Her brother owed her a favor or two. The least he could do was swoop down  
in his airship and take her and an old friend to Luca.  
  
****  
  
Lulu woke up slowly to the sounds of the sea. After living nearly a lifetime accustomed the  
peace of Besaid mornings, the bustle of Luca had at first snapped both her and Wakka up  
nearly at dawn, fumbling for their weapons and then giving each other sheepish little smiles  
once more wakefulness trickled in and they realized weapons weren't needed. They had  
built their house on the far side of the city, away from the docks. It took longer to reach  
Yuna's lodgings in the middle of town and the blitzball stadium, but husband and wife were  
able to wake up to the rustling of palms, the indrawn murmuring of the waves and the  
greetings of the gulls and seals.  
  
Her husband, however, was not beside her in bed this morning, and the house was alive  
with clanging pans. Lulu sighed and stretched down to her toes, rolling her neck in lazy  
circles, determined to get up before Wakka could serve her breakfast in bed.  
  
It was hard to adjust to a new center of gravity - Lulu had watched her three children learn  
how to stand and had been genuinely amazed and delighted each time one succeeded - and  
Lulu's seemed to be shifting every day. But she was resolved to stop Wakka from spoiling  
her and the clattering from the kitchen had been joined by the hiss of something frying, so  
Lulu swung her legs off the bed and swayed to her feet, clutching her lower back.  
  
He had been the worst with the twins. It was the first time for both of them, and they had  
both been discreetly horrified to discover that the human body could expand that much.  
Wakka had been almost pathetically doting, refusing to leave Lulu be until she would snap  
that carrying his children would in no way prevent her from casting a firaga on him. Then  
the twins had come, and they had been a blessing and a joy. Ghadi came, and he was as  
well. This coming one would doubtlessly make their hearts flow over, but Lulu was still  
steadily and patiently training Wakka that being pregnant didn't necessarily make her more  
breakable.  
  
The smell of breaded sweetfruit greeted her in the kitchen. Wakka was standing over the  
new machina stove, balancing Ghadi on one hip and explaining to him sotto-voiced the  
intricacies of frying, the delicate balance between oil and flour and when the sizzle will tell  
you it's done just right. Light streamed in through the window across from them, fresh and  
soft, bringing out the fire in Wakka's hair and her son's still soft and undefined cheeks.  
There were times Lulu thought she should be deeply, profoundly grateful to some power  
greater than herself, but now that Yevon was gone, she never knew what it could be.  
  
"Good morning, darlings," she said, kissing both of them on the cheek.  
  
"Mornin', Lu," Wakka said. He turned to Ghadi. "Hey look! Mom's up!" Ghadi reached  
out both arms to be held, and Lulu gathered him to her chest.   
  
"We made you breakfast," Ghadi said into her shoulder, wrapping his legs around what  
was left of her waist.  
  
"Oh, thank you," she said, bouncing him up and down a little. "It looks wonderful. Where  
are Chapri and Setta?"  
  
"Pickin' up their toys," Wakka told her, flipping the fruit over in the pan. "I promised 'em if  
they did their chores before lunch we'd take 'em to see Rikku when she gets in."  
  
Lulu settled herself carefully on a stool, lowering Ghadi to the floor since she no longer had  
a lap for him to sit on. She poured herself water from the pitcher on the table. "What time  
is that again?"  
  
"Pretty late. After practice." Wakka scowled, shaking his head. "If practice don't run late  
again, that is."  
  
Moving to Luca had been hardest for Wakka. Even when they considered it home, Lulu  
and Yuna had always been essentially outsiders on Besaid. Wakka was so much the native  
son he could have grown from the soil. He didn't like the crowds in Luca, didn't like the  
noise. He certainly had never become quite comfortable with playing for the Goers, even  
though he had been made captain his first year and most of the Aurochs had followed him  
to Luca.  
  
Yuna surely hadn't expected him to leave his home. When she had told them she was  
moving and they joined her at the docks the next morning luggage in hand, she had nearly  
cried, trembling and damp as a newly made butterfly with gratitude and relief. Yuna might  
have needed to move to Luca, but she also needed them. And in a part of Lulu and Wakka  
that was buried the way an anchor is buried in bedrock they were always going to be first  
and foremost her guardians. Lulu knew one component of Yuna's overhanging guilt was  
Wakka's discontent, but Wakka would never even think of holding her responsible. They  
followed Yuna; Yuna followed her duty, and her duty now was in Luca, where she could  
be in the thick of things.  
  
In the days after Sin the temples still tried to maintain power, and the people, who now had  
the strength and conviction of the truth, rebelled. Waves of violence flooded Spira until  
nearly every priest was disposed if not killed, almost every temple converted if not  
destroyed. In a world without Yevon there was no blanket of lies, no spiral of despair, but  
there was also no fundamental order. The cities and towns of Spira were slowly trying to  
knit themselves back together, create some sort of rule out of nothing.   
  
There were only two things connecting the many city-states of Spira these days: the polyps  
of staunch Yevonite orders across the continent and the reverence and respect Yuna  
commanded.  
  
Yuna moderated meetings between adversarial islands, negotiated agreements between  
political groups dividing a city, gently guided Spira into a new form of stability. Lulu and  
Wakka were, as they had always been, her advisors, her friends and her confidants. Life in  
Luca was too busy to be peaceful, but it was, for all of them, Lulu wanted to think,  
contenting.  
  
"Been a while since Rikku came around," Wakka remarked conversationally.  
  
Lulu took a sip of water. "Well, can you blame her? It must be awkward at the least."  
  
Wakka shrugged uncomfortably. "It'll just be good to see what she's up to, ya?"  
  
Lulu nodded. "So I'll meet you with the children by the airdocks when practice is over?"  
  
"You sure that such a good idea?" Wakka said, giving her stomach a significant look.  
"Maybe you should stay home and I'll come by an' collect the kids. You should be  
keepin' off your fe-"  
  
"Wakka," Lulu said, his name a warning.  
  
Wakka rolled his eyes with a good-natured sputter. "All right, fine. Meet ya after practice,  
Lu."  
  
Lulu leaned back as far as momentum would allow, taking another long drink. It was these  
little victories you had to savor.  
  
****  
  
"But if Killika pays its debts to Luca and the Djose Al Bhed, yes we could conceivably  
make up the deficit of the economy in a few years, but that's only if the fishing will be  
extremely fruitful, which is immeasurable at this point in time. It's much safer...Lady  
Yuna?"  
  
"Mm?" Yuna looked up, realizing guiltily she had been devoting most of her attention to  
toying with her hair wrap and only peripherally listening to Deneti. "Oh, I'm so sorry!  
Please continue."  
  
Deneti frowned. "We have been negotiating for a long time, Lady Yuna. If you would like  
to take a short recess I would be more than happy to oblige."  
  
Yuna shook off the muzziness of the daydream with a smile. "Oh no, not at all. I wouldn't  
call this negotiating anyway, Deneti. We're just friends talking politics. Unless, of course, if  
you want to stop for the moment?"  
  
Deneti looked down abruptly, smoothing his sideburns. "No. No, I would like to  
continue."  
  
She wasn't sure why she was so distracted lately. Perhaps it was the news that Rikku was  
coming to visit from her expedition south of Besaid, which was quite unexpected and,  
these days, unfortunately rare. Rikku mostly came now on matters of business, although  
she always tried to stay as long as she could.  
  
If that was the reason it was very unfair not to grant her full attention to Deneti, whom she  
quite liked. The second in command of Killika was in his hazy early thirty years. A  
fisherman with tired eyes and strong hands, skin turned leathery from too much sun and sea  
salt, he became a politician because no one else on Killika seemed to know how it was  
done. Yuna always considered him decent and dedicated. He didn't speak in puzzles or  
metaphors, neither of which she considered herself very good at deciphering.  
  
The dizzy spell (as she had named it in the privacy of her mind) hadn't come again, but she  
had been feeling tired lately, listless.. Yuna was being more careful to eat full meals and  
sleep well at nights, and would have simply dismissed the episode except it refused to  
be banished. The memory of it had taken up residence in the back of her head, subtle as a  
dagger and nudging her when it had no right to.  
  
It shouldn't mean anything, and Yuna decided that it wasn't going to either. Yuna shuffled  
through her notes, concentrating on what could be weighed and measured and evaluated,  
what was important here and now.  
  
"You know, I've heard of a few people who are using machina to chart the patterns and  
breeding habits of local schools of fish..."  
  
****  
  
"Aunt Rikku!" Setta and Chapri cried, and pounced.  
  
Rikku would never outgrow her thinness, but she had the willowy strength of someone  
who became a fighter by choice and wasn't one by nature. Still, her constitution was no  
match for the combined weight of three determined toddlers. Rikku liked kids well enough,  
loved her friends' children as the properly devoted aunt, but they could be a little...  
enthusiastic sometimes. A few people on the dock turned to stare at the Al Bhed with  
children hanging off of her like ornaments. "Ewf! ...Hey, guys....Nice to see you too."  
  
"Hey, Rikku." Wakka grinned. Her hair had grown out since the last time they had met,  
and she wore almost all of it in small beaded braids pinned up in a messy swirl on the back  
of her head. Wakka was amusing himself by twirling one on his finger. "This is new.  
What'd you do, decide to become a shell?"  
  
"Oh, quit it," Rikku said, batting his hand away. "You big meanie. Look at you!" she said,  
turning her attention to Lulu. "You're as big as a house!"  
  
"It's nice to see you too," Lulu said with dry chuckle as Rikku hugged her. "I'm sorry  
Yuna couldn't be here. She had a meeting she couldn't get out of. She said she'd try to cut  
it short and come see you though."   
  
"That's okay," Rikku said, smoothing the hair that Wakka had rumpled. She wanted to  
delay this, have at least a few more minutes of her friends simple pleasure in seeing her, but  
it was better to do this right away. The sting always hurt less than the dread, and she  
already felt like she was hiding something. "Maybe...maybe it's better that she's not here  
right now."  
  
Lulu raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Hey, kids!" Rikku said with a clap of her hands. "Want to go play with my brother? He's  
got some cool new machina to show you."  
  
Chapri, who was fascinated by anything mechanical, was already running up the ramp.  
Ghadi tugged on his mother's skirt imploringly.  
  
"It's okay, sweetheart. You and Setta can go and play." Lulu tweaked her childrens' chins  
and called, "Be polite!" after them.  
  
"So what's this all about?" Wakka asked.  
  
"I've got...someone I want to show you."  
  
Wakka gave a friendly little snort, grinning. "You got a new boyfriend now, Rikku?"  
  
That she didn't blush and hotly deny it and elbow Wakka in the stomach should have been  
all the warning they needed. "No," Rikku said, picking at her nail-polish with an intensity  
the act didn't warrant. "No one like that. I guess...I'll get him for you."  
  
She blended into the shadows of the yawning metal mouth of the ship's bay and a few  
minutes later met them again with Tidus a little ways behind her, holding her hand.  
  
Wakka's jaw didn't drop so much as it sagged open, as if he forgot how he was  
supposed to keep his mouth closed. Even Lulu took a small involuntary step forward.   
  
Tidus stood on the ramp, blinking at the light, his eyes not drawing to anything in  
particular.  
  
After a few minutes of the four of them standing there, a petrified tableau in the middle of  
the docking bay, Wakka crossed his arms, looking almost angry. "This some kinda joke?"  
  
Rikku shook her head. "No. No joke but it's kinda...complicated. I think we need to talk."  
  
"I'll say," Lulu's default sarcasm was more watery than usual as they followed Rikku into  
the ship.  
  
****  
  
"So he got amnesia or somethin'?"   
  
Rikku was still playing with her nails. They were going to get bloody before long if she  
kept it up. She peered out further down towards the hatch, but Tidus was out of eyeshot  
and it was easier to talk about him behind his back than when he was in the room and not  
acknowledging what was being said about him.  
  
"I guess. ...something like that anyway. But it's more than that too. He doesn't remember  
/anything/ yeah, but he's not...acting like himself either, you know? You'd think that even if  
somehow all his memories got wiped out or something he'd still at least be the same  
person he was, anyway. But...he can walk and speak and stuff, but it's like he's not  
/there/."  
  
"Do you think it's really him?" Lulu asked.  
  
Rikku looked sad and guilty. "I...I don't know. That's what I was hoping you guys could  
help me find out."  
  
"Of course it's him!" Wakka still looked vaguely angry. "Who else could it be? I'm gonna  
go talk to him. See what's what."  
  
"Keep your head," Lulu told him as he marched out of the hull. Wakka didn't answer.  
  
"So when's the baby due?" Rikku asked, after a while.  
  
"A month and a half."  
  
"Oh." Rikku paused and then blurted out, "I just didn't know what else to do with him,  
you know? I couldn't just leave him there."  
  
"I...suppose," Lulu said, and then kept speaking when she saw Rikku's face fall. "It was  
good to bring him here. We /did/ need to know about this, whatever it is. Only... you saw  
Wakka just now. And Yuna..."  
  
Rikku sighed. "I know. But Tidus is our friend too. And he needs our help."  
  
Lulu put a hand on the firm swell of her stomach like it was the only thing she was sure of.  
  
After a minute Wakka poked his head in again. "Uh, Rikku? He ain't there."  
  
Rikku blinked. "But I told him to stay by the door." She could feel the panic hovering  
overhead but not quite descended yet.  
  
Wakka scratched the side of his forehead, looking sheepish. "I know. But he still ain't  
there."  
  
Rikku just avoided shoving him out of the way as she sprinted out of the airship, eyes  
darting to the shadows and odd corners of the hull. Her shoulders sagged as she looked  
out from the safety of what was machina and Al Bhed and familiar and into the mass of  
people that was Luca harbor. "Oh no," she said, the panic crashing to the pit of her  
stomach. "Why did he have to go and get curious /now/?"  
  
****  
  
Days like this when the air was clear and crystalline and the deep colors of the buildings  
and the ocean shone in all their cheerful grandeur, Luca seemed to be showing off. Even  
the part of Yuna that still a small island girl and thought loveliness was only due to what  
was natural and quiet had to admit that Luca, in all of its frenetic energy, was really quite  
beautiful.  
  
She could have moved to Bevelle, back to Bevelle after all those years, but Yuna thought  
she had made the right choice. She had grown too accustomed to Besaid not to need to  
live somewhere filled with sunlight and near warm water. She couldn't stay in the icy  
ethereal perfection of Bevelle. Certainly nothing sweet and welcoming had ever thrived  
there.  
  
Besides, Bevelle had been the old center of Spira. This new Spira that was juicy with  
possibilities deserved a new capital, a warmer heart.  
  
Yuna loved walking along the docks, even when she was just on her way to meet  
someone. Of course, that wasn't a chore when she was going to meet one of her dearest  
friends, but she still enjoyed the walk itself. She loved the sun on her face, the noise of the  
sea and the vessels and the merchants and the airships overhead. She spent days on end of  
sitting at long stone tables talking to the same men about politics and state, and the ideas  
became more and more abstract the longer she stayed. Going outside, watching people  
unload ships or sit at cafes and talk - just living their lives - reminded her what it was all for  
and that she was a strand in this web, even if people tended to stand back and whisper  
respectfully among themselves when she passed.  
  
So Yuna strolled to the airship docks with her hands linked behind her back, a little smile  
on her face as she hummed tunelessly.  
  
And then she saw him, standing at the end of one of the longer, thinner, airdocks.   
  
And it was the end and the beginning of everything as a claw reached into her chest and  
squeezed, while the world around them turned wondrous and golden.  
  
She blinked, expecting him to be a trick of the light that would turn back into a stranger.  
But it was still him, staring at the sea. She couldn't do anything at all for a moment and  
then she could only call his name, weakly at first and then louder, Tidus Tidus Tidus. And  
he turned and it was /him/, the same face and hands and eyes imprinted on her mind with  
the sweet stretching ache of a cure spell.   
  
She hitched up her skirt and ran, the heels of her boots echoing hard as they landed on the  
wood, and she didn't stop until she reached him, the force of her momentum nearly  
knocking him over. Because she had dreamed and she had wished for so long she forgot  
that she was wishing at all, but she had never dared for a moment before let herself /hope/.  
  
"Tidus!" She wasn't hugging him, just clutching his arms out of some sudden, absurd  
shyness, but they were firm and real under her hands. Not dream arms at all. "Tidus!  
Why...how? Thank...thank /someone/. You're here. You're really /here/." She felt herself  
choke up, and threw her arms around him, and he was still unquestionably in her grasp. She  
could feel the smile on her face, small and saturated with joy.  
  
"Am I supposed to know you too?" Tidus asked.  
  
She didn't let go of him because she wasn't sure if she'd be able to stand steady and  
straight if she did. If the dizziness a few days ago had disconnected her from the rest of the  
world, this was too much of reality at once, and it burned. "...what?"  
  
"Rikku did this too. I'm supposed to know her. Am I supposed to know you?"  
  
Yuna disengaged herself carefully, still holding on to his upper arms, feeling like a china  
plate that someone had broken and mended but still showed all the cracks. "...Rikku?  
What...? ...Tidus?"  
  
Tidus looked down at her, his mouth a straight line when everything else was disoriented  
and sharp.  
  
Her ears couldn't quite pick out the sound of running feet but she did hear a close, familiar  
voice moan in hopeless horror, "oh /no/."  
  
Rikku was by her side, tugging at her hands, which for some ridiculous reason of their own  
were clutching Tidus's sleeves even tighter. "Oh, Yunie, I'm so sorry! I didn't know it  
would happen like this. Come back to the ship, let me explain. Lulu, could you take him?  
Thanks. Yunie, you have to believe me I didn't mean for you to meet him like this, I  
promise. I'll tell you everything in a minute, I swear."  
  
Yuna let herself be taken gently and led to Rikku's ship and into a world that didn't make  
sense anymore.  
  
****  
  
Author's Notes  
Such shame I feel. Such deep, deep shame. Final Fantasy X doesn't need a continuation, and  
it certainly doesn't need one now that there's an actual Squaresoft-produced sequel. But  
Tidus kept giving me puppy-dog eyes and Yuna kept sighing wistfully, and you know how it  
is.  
  
This is shaping up to be another long one. Joy. 


	2. Swan Dive

The cold had left with Shiva. But a thousand years of freezing had ruined the soil of Macalania; it was crumbly and porous to the point where every rainfall turned the ground into marshland. The locals had tried to grow crops, but everything withered before it could bloom.

He could have told them that would happen. He could have told them how the ground had been deprived of nutrients for so long it could not nurture the seeds they planted. He could have told them about irrigation and fertilization and photosynthesis. He could even tell them how in another few years the animals whose meat they ate and pelts they sold would either migrate to the colder climates they were used or die off completely.

But he didn't, because by then none of it would matter anyway.             

He was a man prone to constant revision, who would return time and time again and tweak just so until he reached perfection, but after all this time he was still pleased with the initial death he had chosen for her. It was delicately subtle and lingering like a poison, except of course the morbidity was in the depravation of something vital to the system, not in an addition to it.    

He didn't know how long it would take. None of the old tomes had ever said, doubtlessly because there had never been a chance to find out. That also pleased him, that this was research and discovery as much as anything else. Maybe after her death he would go to Bevelle and record his findings in one of the yellow, disintegrating text. It was the least he could do, really.

He was also a man who recognized his limitations, and he knew he didn't have the patience to wait until the rumors started. (Oh, hasn't the Great Summoner been sickly lately, doesn't she look pale? She never travels out of Luca anymore. What do you suppose happened, it's as if she's wasting away...) He would dearly love to wait and see her only at the very end when she could barely leave her bed, still struggling to

pretend her body wasn't betraying her (and she would struggle, he knew. She was a fighter, that one, especially against forces she didn't understand.). But he couldn't resist the temptation of seeing her now, when he was the only one who knew what was happening and what would happen, when he could watch her smile and know even before she did that it was fading.

He wasn't sure he cared about justice anymore, but it was certainly poetic.

So he bent over his writing desk as he did every day, called in his secretary, and made the necessary arrangements to bring Lady Yuna to Macalania.

****                

Tidus hadn't been on the Farplane.

It was the only thought echoing through the numb cavern of her mind as she listened to Rikku explain the situation with expansive gesticulations and worried eyes. He had not been on the Farplane.

Yuna had never gone to see for herself. It had been Wakka who told her, after he came back from his trip to Guadosalam to speak with Chappu before proposing to Lulu. He had told his new fiance first, of course; not that it had ever been disclosed to Yuna, but she knew how they worked. And Lulu must have decided that it was information Yuna should know; so Wakka had told her, kicking at the dirt and not meeting her eyes, how he had called Tidus too, and Tidus had not come.

Even then Yuna hadn't dared let herself think about it for too long, because she was very busy with important work, and who knew what happens to a dream when the dreamer wakes? In either direction the conclusions were frightening: maybe Tidus had ceased to exist entirely, or maybe he was on Spira somehow, in some form, and he hadn't come back to her. 

The first scenario had terrified her more, that Tidus could have just dissolved into the firmament after he leapt and not even a whisper of him was left anywhere. She would rather Tidus be safe, be /real/ and far away.  Now it seemed like she had gotten that old wish, except it didn't at all.

Yuna had nodded while Rikku talked and made little thoughtful noises in the back of her throat and was very careful to look at her hands and nothing else. She had excused herself to get some air. The others, thankfully, had not taken it as an invitation to follow her, and she had managed to make her way to one of the small outdoor cafes that dotted Luca's streets without even wobbling very much. Somehow a glass of chilled fruit juice had made its way to the table although she had no recollection of either ordering it or its delivery.

She used to have the oddest dreams. She still did, once in a while. She would be with Tidus and he would be wonderfully warm and solid beside her. Sometimes the scenarios played like loops of memory of their conversations or the sights they had seen, sometimes they invented impossibilities -- Tidus taking her on a tour of his Zanarkand, full of strange people and machina and buildings so tall they made her dizzy like she always thought they would, or the two of them walking on the beaches of Besaid, holding hands and mostly silent but smiling.

The worst, the very worst, was when she would wake up and still be in a dream where Tidus was lying beside her in a bed that wasn't hers but theirs, both of them wrapped in little more than the sheets and each other. When she would truly wake from those, she choked on the memories as they flooded back.               

But Yuna was familiar with grief. Everyone on Spira was. Mourning had been so much a part of life that it often only seemed significant or shattering to the bereaved. Yuna knew about loss and she knew about pain, and she thought she knew how to survive when holes were ripped into her life and festered. She had her friends. She had all of Spira before her, fresh-faced as it looked at a new era, and there was always

so much that needed doing.

All her life she had been prepared to die, and Tidus was the only person who told her it wasn't the only choice in a way she could allow herself to believe. He had asked her to live for him, and so she would. Yuna would thrive, and do his memory proud.

She had decided that long ago, and it had helped her get through the days when she felt scraped raw and as substantial as pollen. And those days had grown farther and farther apart, and eventually the pain became that of shrapnel in her side, ceaseless but bearable. And then it only ached when something reminded her of him or she chose to remember him, and Yuna had thought that was as close as she would get to acceptance, that the difference was negligible. She had thought she was fine.   

Yuna wasn't sure what she was now, except as exhausted as if she had lived three years in an hour. Maybe in a few days she'd know, but for right now she could only stir her drink and think about the way Tidus's gloves had felt cupping her cheek, how his voice was rough and throaty early in the morning, the smell of his hair.

"Yunie?" Rikku's old name for her, which the twins had somehow picked up, said now like Rikku wasn't sure she was allowed to use it anymore. 

Yuna looked up and the smile came easily because her friends were always there to protect her even when she hadn't known she needed protection. "Yes?"

Rikku relaxed, and Yuna wondered if she were supposed to be angry with her younger cousin. "Lulu thought you might be around here. Uh... she wanted to remind you that Isaaru's coming in a little while and you might want to be at home to receive him."

Lulu, wise wonderful Lulu, knew enough not to bring her back with kindness or pity but with a gentle reminder of her responsibilities. Yuna nodded and fished around her pocket for some spare gil, plunked it on the table and caught up with Rikku, who was already a few steps ahead of her on the way back home.

She asked, when it became clear that Rikku wasn't going to start a conversation, "So how's Cid?"

Rikku nearly missed a step, her eyes large. "Uh..."

Yuna smiled patiently. "He's still my uncle, Rikku. We might be having a disagreement, but I still want to know how he's doing."

"He's good," Rikku answered slowly, nodding to herself in private affirmation. "Things are going really great, actually. Home's being built according to schedule, except for a few innovations that popped up at the last minute and...uh...is this, you know, official or anything?"

Yuna sighed. "Not unless you want it to be."

"Okay. 'Cos no offense, Yunie, but I really don't." Rikku buried her hands in her hair briefly and clenched her finger, as if securing the information in her head.

Yuna looked down at the cobblestones, her necklace chiming softly. "I'm sorry,

Rikku. I know it can't be easy to be stuck in the middle of this."

"Hey, it's no big deal, Yunie!" Mercurial as ever, Rikku patted her on the shoulder with a quick flash of teeth. "You obviously haven't been around the Al Bhed enough if you think /this/ is a real fight."

Yuna ran her fingers lightly over the display window of a passing store. "It's just...this is a time when all of Spira needs to be coming together. If we're going to make the world without Yevon work, all the races need to be united. This could be the beginning of the most peaceful age we've ever known...and a new Home is just tearing the Al Bhed away from everyone else."

"Well, yeah," Rikku said, contentious despite herself. "But it's not that simple, Yuna. It's not like all the Spirans are all happy-skippy ready to treat the Al Bhed like...like.../people/, Yevon or no Yevon. We've been really hurt in the past, and we just need a space for ourselves, to live and be happy. Most Al Bhed /like/ being Al Bhed. We don't want to be anything else."

"I'm not asking that the Al Bhed be anything but tolerant." Yuna felt the tension crackling in the air and tried to mellow her voice and her argument. "I know most Al Bhed just want to live in peace, but rebuilding Home on Bikanel is just giving the Separatists a base and an /excuse/. There's no way the Al Bhed can coexist with the rest of Spira if the faction gain much more influence."

"That's sorta the point," Rikku said, not quite under her breath. "You know that Dad isn't as extreme as Bruvok and the rest of them. Pops doesn't want to break away completely...but if we're gonna be a power at all, we need a base of operations, you know?  Besides, the rest of Spira just has a bad track record when it comes to keeping promises to the Al Bhed. We need somewhere we can go back to if we need to protect ourselves, is all."

 "If we can't stop thinking in the old ways, how can the old patterns /not/ repeat themselves?" Yuna had had versions of this conversation countless times with people she preferred not to count at all. It normally left her frustrated and hopeless, half convinced that the grooves they traveled were too deep for people to even know they were there. Now, though, it was a relief to walk down one of the variations of this argument when the new wilderness of her thoughts frightened her.

Rikku misinterpreted the look on her face and became all frantic apology again. "Let's not talk about this, Yunie. I know where you're coming from too, you know. That's why I'm not Home right now playing with a blowtorch. Pops is fine letting me do my own, so don't worry about me!"

Yuna smiled at her cousin, all grown up enough to know when to stop growing before she lost her shine. "I'm glad I don't have to."

Rikku pumped a fist in the air playfully. "Right!"

Tidus had been fascinated by the Al Bhed, their culture of machina and guttural language. Maybe they reminded him of home; maybe he was just naturally drawn to their pragmatic cheer. Yuna remembered all the time he had wrangled out of their journey to search for those primers, how Lulu was nearly ready to throttle him after hours of sidetracking culminated in his proclamation that he was one whole letter closer to understanding. He was pretty fluent by the end, although Rin had told her privately that Tidus had an atrocious accent.

Yuna was sometimes still uncertain if she had truly done right by his memory. Her first impulse after Sin had been defeated and the swarms had been demanding to know how was to omit his presence from their story. Five Guardians was more than any Summoner had ever had before, by itself, and anyone who knew Tidus for what he had been was either dead or deferential to her wishes. The various people they had met during her journey could easily forget a blond, impulsive blur who watched from the fringes. Talking about him, she had felt almost instinctively, would be beyond her tolerance. She wanted to keep him secret, protect him as something solely hers.

But in the end, she couldn't do that to him, couldn't do him the injustice of erasing him from Spira's history. Tidus had craved fame, basked in it like it could replace the sun. In front of a cheering crowd he was accepted, and the longer Yuna knew him the sadder it made her that he did not believe a miracle like that could happen anywhere

else. Tidus had constitutionally mistaken adoration for love, and Yuna couldn't deny him the ultimate glory of idolization. Tidus had been a star; now he was a hero. He would like that.

Still, she couldn't bring herself to tell his whole story. Tidus was the most mysterious of the Great Guardians, the one who had joined them in Besaid for reasons unknown and died with Sir Auron during the fight with Yu Yevon. Tidus wouldn't approve, she knew; he was honest to the marrow. But back then, even thinking about it made her feel like there were rocks in her throat, acid under her skin. Moreover, she refused to let the legends of Sin's eternal defeat be riddled with sorrow. As a culmination of all the Summoners before her, she wanted only joy for Spira now.

But in a part of her that was thin and sour, she also did not want the two of them to be Spira's great tragedy. There would be plays after her death or maybe when she was still alive to see them, and Yuna refused to let them be melodramas full of wistful sighs and farewells written in verse. Neither of them were fit to be martyrs or poets, when it came down to it. Tidus had simply done what he thought had to be done, and she refused to let the nobility in that be cheapened. In this way she kept him safe, as she couldn't on the airship when he had slipped through the arms she had meant to cradle him in.

"Yunie..." Rikku was saying, moving as if to hold her hand but stopping at the last minute to lightly brush her fingers. "I'm...I'm sorry it happened like that. He wasn't supposed to...I told him to stay put."

"It's all right," Yuna said absently. "He might have died if you had left him on that island, right?" She tilted her head and gave Rikku a closed-lipped smile.

Rikku shrugged as if that were beside the point. "I felt bad about it, but the only place I could think to bring him to was here."

"Mm," Yuna said, watching a woman scold her son for crossing the street without waiting to hold her hand.

Rikku looked up at her anxiously. "So...is it okay if we...he...stays here with you and Lulu and Wakka until we figure out what's going on?"

Yuna felt a flash alarmingly like anger that Rikku thought she had the power to send him away, that she could say no. "Of course."

Rikku beamed with relief, bouncing on her toes. "Great! Thanks, Yunie! We'll find out what's going on in no time, you'll see! And maybe... maybe we'll bring his memory back, or whatever it is that's wrong, we'll fix it. We'll get him back to normal!"

Yuna just nodded. Rikku could just be being hopeful for her sake, but Rikku expected the best to happen because she believed that it was the only way you could be capable of doing everything it took to bring it about. It wasn't Yuna's place to disillusion her.

Yuna knew about loss and she knew about pain, and she knew the only true curatives were time and determination. She didn't know if    this...this /thing/ with its slack and stupid face was really Tidus. It didn't seem like him, once she got past her first visceral reaction. Seeing him had been a step back into the past as unexpected as a puddle of cold rain water, and part of Yuna didn't want to be submerged deeper into this, didn't want to relive the hurt.

But this felt too random not be significant. Dreamstuff didn't just fall out of the sky like this. There had to be a reason she just didn't know yet. Yuna had to figure out what was going on. And then there was the chance, even if it might be small, even if believing in it would end up breaking her, what was going on was that Tidus had come home.

She wondered if she had enough time to lie down for a moment before Isaaru came. The morning had been so draining.

*****

Tidus was lying on his bed, waiting for Rikku to come back.

He had just learned what waiting was. It meant doing nothing but knowing something was going to happen soon. He had learned a lot today. He learned that Rikku and the other people who lived with Rikku on the boat (floats on water) and the airship(floats on air) were not the only people. There was the man, orange and bronze like the sunset, and the woman, black and cream like the night and the moon, who both looked at him. And there was the other girl, who looked at him and touched him and then looked away.

She saw out of two different colors. If you mixed them together, you would have the ocean.

*****

When Lulu was six, she would ask the acolytes who cared for the foundlings where her mother and father and baby brother, who was so new he didn't even have a name yet, were. They would touch her head or hands with tender pity and say, "in the Farplane, child." 

So Lulu decided she would go to the Farplane too, to be with them again.

She asked everyone who seemed like they might know where it was, how people got there. She drew maps to Guadosalam on the spare white tunic given to all the Temple's orphans with charcoal she rescued from the fire. She hoarded food and the little pocket money she was given. When she had saved up seven gil and fifteen biscuits, she snuck out of the temple in the middle of the night and hid on a trading barge. 

The first mate found her huddled up in the sails the next morning, crying because the night wind on the ocean was cold and stowing-away was lonely and she had forgotten her stuffed moogle.

The temple Elders decided Lulu was a high-strung child and sent her from Djose to Besaid, where it was assumed that the warmer climate would do her good.

Over twenty years later an irate and badly scratched sailor dragged Lulu's only daughter back to her by the ear. The mage had first been nearly faint with relief, then furious at both herself and Setta for letting such a stupid, dangerous thing happen. Only much later was Lulu amazed that she and Wakka could have created a person who would unknowingly parallel her own actions with such eerie accuracy.

After she had scolded Setta until her ears were blue and, with Wakka, cuddled her even longer, Setta had told them that she had ran away because she wanted to be a pirate and they had been paying too much attention to Ghadi since he started his potty training.

Lulu had tried to run away out of lonely desperation and her inability to understand her family's death. Setta had done the same because she was daydreaming and jealous. Realizing that, the final piece of understanding had clicked into place, like when she had finally realized the movement and pull of energy that sparked fire and ice

from her fingertips. There would be no more Sin-orphans found sobbing with remains of their village piled at their feet or comatose with shock next to the disfigured bodies of their parents. There would be no more Sin-orphans at all.

Lulu rocked her children back to sleep after their bad dreams, and they had them often. There were a thousand tribulations and horrors to overcome while growing up, and no one could destroy those forever. But Lulu's children would never be helpless in the face of a force that dripped things with fangs and destroyed because it always had.  This youngest generation would never know what it was to fear that tomorrow could be taken from you at any time by a tidal wave, a burst of liquid energy, a gigantic pox-marked fin. Chapri, Setta and Ghadi might not lead easy lives, but they would live them on their own terms.

And one day her children would be the oldest generation, and the idea that something other than yourself and your situation could control your life would be little more than a myth.

She had told Wakka, almost uneasy that he would think it a silly and obvious revelation, but he had held her for a long time, stroking her back with strong, callused hands that never had to fight again.

It had taken Lulu nearly five years to fully grasp the enormity of what they had done, but she suspected Yuna had always known the full reach and scope of her own intentions. Perhaps it was the same for all Summoners, perhaps it was why they had chosen such a life. Yuna had known her mind and had been firm in her decision. It wasn't her fault she hadn't been prepared for the true purpose of her dedication.

Yuna had collapsed on her bed the minute she and Rikku had come back together, huddled in ball with her hands in loose fists by her cheek. Isaaru was due to arrive in ten minutes, but none of them had the heart to wake her. Lulu locked the bedroom door, and informed Shelinda that she and Wakka would receive the guest by themselves.

Waiting in the round room for Isaaru, Wakka was hunched over in his chair, punching a fist rhythmically into his other hand. Lulu put a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Wakka looked down at his hands, surprised, as if he hadn't been aware of what he was doing. "Oh, sorry, Lu." He rested his arms on his knees, hanging his head. "Just...Chappu dies, and then Tidus comes, lookin' just like 'im. An' then Tidus... dies, and now comes back lookin' exactly the same." He ran his fingers through his crest of hair with a short, explosive sigh. "I'm gettin' tired of sayin' goodbye to that face."

Wakka had always been able to do this. Chappu had charmed her and made her laugh, Yuna had a soul so radiant she wanted to protect her and watch her bloom, but only Wakka was capable of earnestness so poignant it cut and healed at the same time.

She slid her chair closer to his and rested her head in the crook of his neck, feeling some of his tension dissipate at the touch. "Maybe you won't have to say goodbye this time."

Wakka puts an arm around her shoulder automatically. "I dunno. This is all pretty screwy."

"That it is."

"What you think we should do?"

"I suppose we'll do what we always do. Deal with the distractions first than figure out how to solve the problem as we go along."

She could feel Wakka nod. "Yeah, I guess. It's just frustratin', ya know? I don't know what I can do 'bout any of this.. Not like there's anythin' I can go beat up to make things better." He mulled it over. "'cept maybe Tidus."

Lulu swatted him, which made Wakka laugh a little.

"I know what you mean, though," she said thoughtfully after a moment. "I'm a little angry too."

Wakka braced his shoulders, and Lulu already knew what he was going to ask. "Lulu? You think Yuna gonna be okay?"

Lulu buried her face deeper in his shoulder, breathing in the scent of tank water and clean skin. "She always has been before. But this is...different."

After that they sat in silence until Isaaru came in, Pacce in tow, apologizing for his tardiness and inquiring after Lady Yuna's health.

Lulu liked Isaaru, she did. He had accepted the truth about Sin and Yevon with more shock than protest, and now he was a dedicated traveling Summoner, Sending and spreading the new creeds where he went. His visits to Luca were always informative about the moods and opinions of the different areas of Spira, and out of all of them only Lulu was willing to think of people as assets and admit Isaaru was one. Still she was in no state right now to talk to anyone other than her dearest ones, and Isaaru was a nuisance and an obstacle.

"While I am always pleased to have an opportunity to speak with the Lady's Guardians, I must admit that I was looking forward to meeting with the Lady herself. I trust she is well enough to be up and about soon?" His politeness, in Lulu's opinion, had never fit him as well as he would have liked. Yuna had a gift for formal speech that made her sound ageless; Isaaru just seemed younger than he should, especially

next to his brother, who at the moment epitomized bored and sullen adolescence. 

Lulu gave Pacce a long, slitted look that was not quite a glare at the way the boy was eyeing her. She had never dressed to hide her figure but that didn't give thirteen year olds permission to look at her like she was a chocobo for rent. "I'm sure Yuna will be fine by tomorrow. But hopefully you don't have news that requires her immediate attention." 

Isaaru shook his head with a dismissive wave and a smile. "Not particularly. You guessed right, Lady Lulu, I do have a message of sorts for the Lady, but I was also just looking forward to seeing her. It's been such a long time."

Pacce snorted, trailing off into insolent giggles when Isaaru shot him a look similar to the one Lulu had given the boy earlier.

"Waaaaaaakkaaaaaa! Luuuuuuuuluuuuuuu! I'm baaaaaaaaaack!" 

Rikku bounded in, bursting through the doors with ease that belied the heavy wood. She always gave an impression of lankiness unexpected for such a small person and she glowed golden framed by the door's dark varnish. Rikku's eyes darted to the back of the room, quick and sapling green, and she crossed one leg behind the other, scratching her cheek sheepishly. "Oops. Didn't know you had company."

"That's...that's all right," Isaaru's voice was oddly dusty, as if he weren't used to this particular tone or the emotion behind it, and he was blinking like the sun was in his eyes. Pacce had promptly stopped giggling, although his mouth was still slightly open.

Lulu reflected it had been years since either of them had seen Rikku, after all.

Rikku bounced into the room, brushing her cheek against Isaaru's in a way that was almost an Al Bhed greeting and ruffling Pacce's hair. "Long time no see, right? You guys look great. Pacce, you really shot up! I bet you're as tall as me now." She picked the seat across from them and next to Wakka, cupping her chin in her hands with her elbows propped up on the table. "So what did I miss?"

Lulu wondered if this was one of the unspoken reasons behind the original prejudice against the Al Bhed, jealousy over the way they could take over a room just by entering it.

"I was just to tell Lady Lulu and Sir Wakka about my recent trip to Macalania," Isaaru said, recovering admirably. "I had the honor of speaking with Minister Daenir before I left."               

"Oh great," Wakka muttered, just under his breath enough. Then louder. "What he want?"

"To meet with Lady Yuna. About the Crusaders."

Wakka crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, a hairbreadth away from being rude. "Again with the Crusaders? It's not like Yuna's in charge of them."

"There are many who would say otherwise." Isaaru smiled a quiet, smug smile.

"Yeah, well Yuna ain't one of them."

"What Wakka is trying to say," Lulu said with a sideways glare to make it clear to Wakka that this /better/ be what he had been trying to say. "Is that Yuna has a great deal to do already without making more work for herself. With all due respect to the Minister, it was a bit thoughtless of him to request her presence on such short notice."

"I understand, Lady Lulu. It's just that the Crusaders appear to be up to their old tricks again."

Rikku rubbed the back of her neck. "Aw, /man/."

The Crusaders were one of the many groups who had been set adrift by the dissolution of Yevon, but they were practically the only one proficient in arms and accustomed to military rigger. Many had left their ranks including in the end Luzzu, out of disgust, and the ones who stayed were the ones who liked to fight and the superiority of a weapon in hand. They were little more than a mercenary group these

days, and only a grudging respect for Yuna kept them in line and useful. The Summoner treated them with the affection and exasperation one felt for errant children, and the Crusaders acted accordingly.

"What are they doing this time?"

"According to Daenir there have been reports of drunkenness in the ranks, assaults on some of the villagers." Isaaru looked down, wincing slightly. "Sexual advances made toward unwilling women."

Lulu put a hand to her brow and sighed. "Yuna is scheduled to meet with Lyuik next week."                        

Isaaru nodded. "I'm glad to hear it, my lady. Please don't think Lady Yuna has to respond immediately. Minister Daenir only told me this in passing and I thought it wise to tell all of you as soon as possible as I was heading to Luca anyway. I'm sure an official request will be made in a few days."

"Great," Wakka grumbled. "Like she don't got enough on her plate now."

"So long are you guys staying?" Rikku asked, abruptly.

Isaaru relaxed at the subject change. "I'm not sure, Lady Rikku. Pacce and I are quite the wanderers these day. We were hoping to enjoy the lovely weather here in Luca for at least a short time."

"I want to go air gliding," Pacce piped up suddenly.

Isaaru smiled indulgently at his brother. "Yes, and go on an air glider if we get the chance."

Lulu stayed mostly silent as the conversation devolved into small talk. After what seemed long enough, she stood up with a briskness that was nearly friendly. "It was wonderful to see both of you again, but we are all very busy. Please feel free to come back tomorrow."

"Yeah," Rikku said. "It's been fun, but I know Wakka and Lulu have a lot to do and I have to get back to the ship to check on-"

It was all in their reaction, Lulu would think later. Isaaru wouldn't have even noticed if the pause hadn't been just long enough, if Rikku hadn't bitten her lip, if Wakka hadn't made an involuntary noise of alarm deep in his throat. But the blip had been conspicuous enough for Isaaru to ask politely, "Check on whom?"

"Rikku's brother has a slight cold," Lulu said smoothly. "Nothing serious, but she wants to make sure he's all right."

Isaaru nodded, but he wasn't a natural liar. Lulu ushered him out of the room before she could watch him think about it.

****

Yuna dreamed of not dreaming, of spending the hours comfortably floating in the dark behind her eyes. It made it particularly jarring when Shelinda bustled into her room and flung open the drapes with a cheerful, "Good morning, Lady Yuna!"

"Morning?" Yuna asked with a trace of alarm, propping herself up on her elbows and blinking at the light.

"You slept through dinner, my Lady." Shelinda turned to her with none of the reproach Yuna was starting to feel towards herself, just worry. Shelinda was upset by any aberrant behavior although she'd never dream of saying anything to Yuna about it. "I thought it might be best not to wake you for it, you seemed so tired. I told the cook to make a big breakfast though because you must be hungry."

"I am," Yuna said automatically although she hadn't had time to evaluate her appetite. "Thank you, Shelinda."                            

Shelinda was in her closet, picking out something light and colorful. "Would this be suitable for today, Lady Yuna?"

Yuna rubbed her forehead, feeling a slight, uncharitable urge that Shelinda go away. "It's fine."

Either reacting to something in her tone or just moving on to the next step in the schedule, Shelinda breezed out of the room with one last concerned smile which Yuna did her best to return.

She was grateful to Shelinda for the thousand everyday miracles her assistant performed which made it possible for Yuna to function at all, but also on a deeper, more intrinsic level, the way she was grateful for rain. They had found Shelinda on Yuna's doorstep one rainy night, delirious with a fever, her rage only dampened by exhaustion. Over the next few weeks, as she grew better, Shelinda told her story on the spare bed over bowls of soup. When Yevon had died (and that was how she

always spoke of Sin's defeat, even now) she had been set adrift in every possible way. Shelinda had no home, no friends, no purpose; no reason to keep going or start over.

She wasn't sure how long she wandered (like a vagabond, she would say later, with a polite little shudder) until she had made her way to Yuna, the only person who could answer her questions of why things had gone wrong and what to do now.

Yuna never did, not in so many words. She had done nothing for Shelinda other than provide a warm bed and a sympathetic ear. When Shelinda was well enough to be up and about, she started doing little chores, tidying the bedrooms and doing the laundry (to make herself useful, she had said. To earn her keep.). As time went on, it only seemed natural that Shelinda took more and more responsibilities upon herself, shyly asking Yuna if she wanted her to take notes on a meeting or plan the day's schedule. Shelinda slipped into the household as if she were a painting tucked in the corner because, Yuna realized, she had a purpose again.

Shelinda had asked her a question Yuna hadn't known would be asked, and provided an answer Yuna didn't want to be right. Shelinda's life had meaning again, and that meaning was Yuna. The High Summoner had simply slipped into the slot in Shelinda's life that Yevon had filled before. It had frightened her, at first, how content, how unquestioning, Shelinda was in subordinating herself to Yuna, how she automatically assumed she was inferior to the font of wisdom and strength Yuna must

be.

Shelinda, with her deference and demure stance, had forced Yuna in the bluntest possible way to realize that unless she was careful nothing would change. Yuna used to think that Sin's death was all the people of Spira needed to be happy. Shelinda had shown her that they wanted something to follow, wanted something to believe in. And who better than the one who had taken the old order from them? Yuna could become a  new Yevon. No one would dare oppose her; most would consider it her right. She could rule Spira, shape it as she saw fit. 

Yuna couldn't imagine a worse possible thing she could do. She had never truly hated Sin because it could be nothing but what it was, but people were capable of being so much more than disciples.

She had cancelled all of her public appearances and most of her private ones, and sent for Maechen because he was the only person she could think of who was wise enough and remote.

"Milady Summoner," he had greeted her, his shabby scholar's robes out of place in the great sweep of the main hall. "This is indeed an honor. How may I be of service?"

"I need your help," Yuna had said, as plainly as she knew how. "I need someone who knows how things work."

Maechen had looked down, shaking his head. "I'm afraid I may be of little use to you then. I only know how things worked long ago, and very little of that. There is more failure than triumph in Spira's past, Milady."

"Then tell me how things failed," Yuna had said. "And we can start from there."

So he had told her about the Spira before Sin, about the old machina cities, which she had always treated with respectful indifference. Maechen had told her how people lived, the houses they built and the currency they used. He had shown her letters powdery with age and brittle negotiations of war, and what struck Yuna the most was how /few/ of them there were, how much silence went into the bloodshed.

"Much has been lost to time, Milady," he had said when she had asked. "But also, I suspect, from looking at how the documents seem to nearly seamlessly fit together as they are now, the ancient cities communicated little if at all before deciding those around them were a threat."

And after thinking for a long time in ways that stretched dormant parts of her brain, Yuna began to realize what to do. The cities had /worked/, they were the thriving metropolises Yevon had always accused them of being. If the seeds of their destruction had been planted in pride, it wasn't symbolized by the machina. Their downfall was in the unthinking arrogance of believing in your own superiority of purpose without even considering the other side.

There could be cities again, or at least centers of unique culture ruling independently over their own kind; Spira was set up for that. And Yuna would be there to make them listen to each other, to open up channels of contact and thought. 

And for six years it had been successful, this shifting balance and this noise. A lot of the time it ran on shoestrings and burnt enthusiasm, but it /worked/. The cities of Spira were growing. They bargained and bickered, but more as a substitute for a real threat than anything leading up to one. Yuna had resigned herself to being an icon a long time ago, but she was not a leader. A guide, maybe, but Yuna was never going to be considered inherently superior to anyone - except in the girl's own mind, Shelinda.

Yuna was vaguely, groggily cheerful when she sat down at her desk for reasons that would probably disappear if she thought about them too long, so she concentrated on paperwork. It was amazing, the amount of things she had to sign.

She fell into the rhythm of her signature, and Deneti surprised her when he came into her office, apology written all over his face and a letter with an broken seal in his hand. "It seems like a tribe of Yevonites has announced they plan on doing missionary work in Killika."

"And you want to see for yourself what they mean by missionary work." Yuna rose and inclined her head in an informal bow. "When will you leave?"

Deneti returned the gesture jerkily. "On the next ship. I plan to be back next week or so, my Lady. I have a few things to say to Lyuik myself."

"May your journey be a safe one," Yuna said. "I look forward to seeing you again soon."

Deneti nodded sharply, which he tended to do when protocol failed him. Then he squinted. "If I may be so bold, is something troubling you, Lady Yuna?"

It sometimes felt like she was lacking some essential bit of programming everyone else had that she couldn't smooth the emotion out of her face, even when she hadn't really known she was feeling any. "Oh, no! I'm...I'm fine. A little tired maybe."

He was staring at her with an intensity she had previously associated with interrogation, Deneti nodded again, although him might not even have been aware of it and it certainly wasn't in response to Yuna's effort to placate him. "You always do that."

"Do what?"

"With your chin." Deneti didn't move forward, but he shifted his weight as if he meant to. "Whenever you're determined or upset you stick your chin up. As if...as if it would make you tall enough to take on the world." His gaze softened to something not exactly wistful but not really still there in the room either, and Yuna did her best not to squirm. Deneti wasn't as practiced as most politicians, but this was awkward in its lack of polish, in its depth of something Yuna wasn't at all sure of.

And then it was gone, and Deneti was backing away. "Forgive me, my Lady-"

"It's all right," Yuna said. She didn't know what she was pardoning, but she was sure it wasn't an offense. "Please tell me how things go in Killika."

"I will, I will." Deneti nearly tripped over himself, looking as if he wanted nothing as much as being out of the room but somehow lacking the mobility to leave quickly or gracefully. "Goodbye, my Lady!"

When he was gone, Yuna checked her reflection in a small decorative mirror on the wall. Her chin was jutted out and up, like a determined child. She tilted her head down until it was parallel with the line of the ceiling and sat back down again. Whatever that had been, she decided, was a matter best left for discussion with Lulu.

She got a few more pages of work out of the way before she sensed someone looking at her. Half expecting Deneti had forgotten to tell her something, wondering why Shelinda hadn't announced him, she looked up.

It was Tidus.

It could be, she corrected herself without a hitch. It could be Tidus; it was the person who looked like Tidus. But at first sight, the reaction that shivered through her nerves was the unmistakable shock of /him/. He was in the doorway, arms limp and obedient at his sides. He was staring but not actually looking at anything, not surveying what was around him, eyes just happening to fall here or there.

"Hello," Yuna said, carefully.

He focused on her, slowly, and his eyes were that same blue, like a punch or a smile, and so very vacant. "Hi."

"You can come in if you would like."

He took a weighty step or two inside, looking around a little bit now. Tidus had always barged into a room and took notes later, unless he was absolutely awed by whatever was there. That had been surprisingly often. Tidus had respected beauty.

"We moved here a few years ago," Yuna found herself saying, the words tumbling over each other. "Lulu, Wakka and I. It's busier than Besaid but it's nice. The stadium's still here. It's used all the time. I miss the sunsets in Besaid sometimes though. But it's still nice."

After a moment he nodded like someone nodding at a grocer, and Yuna clenched her pen hard.

It was almost unbearably awkward - for her, he didn't seem to have enough in him for embarrassment - until she hear running feet out in the hallway and Rikku poked her head in. "There you are! What did I tell you about staying put? I hope he wasn't too much trouble, Yunie. C'mon, let's-"

"Rikku, could I speak to you for a moment in private, please?" Yuna said, already out of her chair.

Rikku looked puzzled but followed her cousin out of the room. Yuna drew her closer and said in quiet, confidential tones. "Please don't let him wander around again."

"Well, yeah, I didn't mean to. I was just distracted for a minute. I know it's not good to let him roam around by himself-"

"It's not just that. Deneti was here just a little while ago. Shelinda is usually nearby. Many dignitaries visit. People have seen the statues, they would...recognize him. It might cause trouble if anyone saw him."

"Okay," Rikku said slowly, not really understanding.

"So I would appreciate it if you could keep him in the wing where you two are staying. Please don't let him come near the office or the dining rooms or, or anything."

Rikku's eyebrows knotted in dismay. "But, Yunie-"

"Rikku," Yuna said it louder than she meant to, her voice like the vibrations of a breaking string. She breathed in deeply and tried again. "Rikku. Please."

And Rikku stared at her, hard and defiant, and then looked away. Then she said with something like disappointment but sadder, "Okay. Okay, he won't go anywhere. Sorry, Yuna."

Yuna murmured something in reply, and Rikku went back into the room, saying things in soothing tones, and came out leading him gently by the elbow. Yuna was careful to have her back turned as they walked away. He had been watching her again.

She straightened her shoulders and sat back down, and let herself cradle her head in her hands for a few minutes before she went back to work.


End file.
